Colombia - The Only Danger is wanting to stay part 2

From Cartagena we travelled south on to Medellin in the beautiful Andes Mountains in the Antiquoia region of Colombia, Medellin is kown as the city of the eternal spring as it has a perfect climate year round, temperatures in the 70s with lots of great sunshine and a few thunderstorms thrown in for good measure, this means the Antiquoia region is perfect for growing almost anything. The coffee is sublime and it is known as the orchid capital of the world.

The city of Medellin itself has also undergone the most incredible transformation, from the mid 80s and into the 90s Medellin was considered the most dangerous city in the world, home to warring drug lords, corrupt politicians as well as rebel and paramilitary fighters, it was not a pleasant place to be. Bombings and killings were a regular occurance and the population really was living in a state of fear. Colombians are extremely passionate people and it gave me goosebumps to hear them speaking of this time, you could sense the fear in their voices and see it in their eyes. Medellin was a city suffering from all manner of problems stuck in a seemingly never ending cycle of drugs, money and violence, so what did the city do about it?

They built a metro system from scratch. This metro connected all corners of the city together, even including the remotest mountainsides in the form of cablecars that enabled people to travel safely around the city where otherwise it may not have been possible to do so. They also built new schools and libraries, even in the poorest neighbourhoods, helping everyone to feel included in the city and giving youngsters an opportunity to break the cycle of gangs, poverty and violence through education. The libraries became a symbol of the cities transformation and were designed by some of the worlds leading architects they are situated close to the metro stations often in the poorest neighbourhoods of the city. It is quite a sight, seeing an incredible ultra modern library looming out of the shanty towns but they serve their purpose well and along with the metro, schools and a strong security platform have really helped open up sections of the city and aid Medellins transformation.

Riding the metro is a really fun thing to do in Medellin, on our first day we hopped on the train to the end of the line and then caught one of the cable cars up the mountain side for wonderful views of the city, as I previously mentioned the cable car takes you to some of the poorest parts of the city and it is quite a surral feeling sitting in a cable car flying ovet the colourful city below. A lot of the residents in the buildings below have painted their roofs for the benefit of the people in the cable cars and I enjoyed photographing them on our way up!

We were staying in the sleepy residential suburb of La Floresta in a wonderful little place called the Yellow House Hostel. The owner Vince was a European who had visited some years before and loved the place so much he wanted to stay, it is easy to see why, the weather is perfect, nestled in the Andes mountains the views are incredible, it is perfectly safe and the people are so friendly and lovely. Vince introduced us to his two big dogs, Thomas and Sebastian who also seemed to be enjoying themselves, lounging around in the sun and eating all the leftovers from our tasty free breakfast which must have included enough fresh fruit to keep the worlds ant population alive for a year! Dogs are the same the world over! Vince suggested we try a little restuarant around the corner and we are so glad he did! It was such a neat place, Amanda said she had the best veggie burger of her life there and I loved trying all the tasty local dishes, they also served some local craft beer called 3 cordilleras. The 'rosada' is not so strong, has raspberries added to it and it tastes delicious!

Thomas the dog in Medellin

The thing I was most looking forward to on our trip was definitely the football game and it didn't dissapoint! Medellin is home to two teams, Nacional and Independiente, both share a stadium and are powerhouses of the Colombian league. We were fortunate enough to watch Independiente Medellin or the 'red of the mountains' as they are known. The stadium was beautiful with a backdrop of the Andes mountains in every direction I would have been happy just sitting in the stands watching the sun set! The Atanansio Girardot (stadium) is just down the road from La Floresta where we were staying so we got to walk to the game with all the fans through the tree and flower lined streets which was nice. After a bit of confusion at the ticket office where we managed to use our Spanish prowess to pay almost three times the face value of the ticket we were in the stadium - It was still only about $15 each and Amanda and I are intednding to learn Spanish next year to avoid any such thing happens again!



The atmosphere in the stadium was awesome, I didn't really know what to expect South American fans have quite a reputation for being very noisy and colourful and I know little about the Colombian league except that since the drug money ran out (the cartels used to use the football teams as a way to filter dirty drug money into the system) a lot of the teams are struggling financially. Well you'd never know this judging by the turnout for this game, the place was packed and the ultras, taking up an entire stand made an absolute racket for the whole game they even had their own brass band! Unfortunately my camera chose the worst time to stop working, during the unveiling of a massive banner which stretched half way round the stadium, form the top to the bottom of the stand my memory card packed up meaning no pictures! It was an awesome sight but you'll have to take my word for it as I have no pictures!!!! The game itself was pathetic, Independiente won 1-0 but played really badly against the minnows of the league Autonoma, neither side managed to string more than 3 passes together and I think I could put better crosses into the box than Independientes number 19 even though I have not played any football for years and have a dodgy knee.

Next day we hopped back on the metro and went to the botanic gardens. As you would expect form a city known as the orchid capital of the world, they were fantastic! Full of colour and flowers the size of of your head. They had a great little coffee shop with views out over the gardens and a really cute little resident cat that looked a bit like our old cat flora, except without the white paw, she was definitely as grumpy as Flora too, she got quite angry at me when I got up close to take a picture and interrupt her sleep! While in Medellin you also have to remember to keep looking up at the treetops, as there are huge iguanas living in the trees!!! I didn't manage to photograph one, but it is awesome to see these massive lizards somewhat precariously perched on what seems to be from the ground a extremely thin twig!

Amanda enjoying a cuppa coffee in the botanic gardens

A cute little cat that I woke up!

A leaf from the Sankewood tree, about twice the size of Amandas foot!

A panda!

The next day it was time to move. Unfortunately the Yellow House Hostel was all booked up for the weekend and they could not extend our stay, so we had to head out of La Floresta to EL Poblado where we booked a double room in the Black sheep hostel, the owner was from New Zealand and was another case of a foreigner visiting, falling in love with the city and staying there! Unfortunately Amanda had a really nice, big and heavy wheelie suitcase which she took on the trip, it is great for wheeling through airports, a pain on steps and an absolute nightmare on public transport of any kind! Unfortunately they were busy digging up the pavements in El Poblado when we arrived and had put this loose gravel down as a temporary walkway while they finished up the construction.This did not bode well for Amanda, me or the bag. We had to lug it along this tiny path, just as all the school children were letting out down the way and heading down the narrow path straight towards us. Amandas suitcase took up the entire width of the pavement and then some and it was a bloody nightmare! Here is a picture of me at the station after we had finished our mission, I was privelidged to get to wear two hats because we didn't have anywhere to put Amandas straw one! So as a result my travel tip of the day is don't take a gigantic heavy wheelie suitcase to Colombia and if you really do have to take one with you then use a taxi, they are so cheap I wished we had used one ourselves!!!

El Poblado is a extremely fancy neighbourhood full of shopping centres, shopping centres and then a few more shopping centres with extremely high price tags. The wealth on display was staggering, especially as it was in such contrast to other parts of the city, it reminded me of America in this respect. Although there was not a huge amount of things of interest to us in El Polblado, we did make a discovery.... Crepes and Waffles. This is a chain restuarant found throughout Colombia and oh boy is it good! you can have a tasty savoury crepe with practically anything you could possibly want inside it for your dinner and then you can polish it off with a yummy waffle smopthered in Nuttela for desert! I normally love to try new restuarants and stay away from chains when I am on holiday but I must admit that we ate here at least twice, it was just so darn good! From our base at El Polblado we went off to explore a place called Parque Arvi, this is a national park just outside Medellin, extremely accesible as you can get to it by cable car!!!! The journey on the cable car takes about 25 minutes, and whisks you over the shanty towns and into the cloud forests, where you can look below and see huge butterflies fluttering around in the canopy of the trees. Here is a picture of Amanda enjoying the scenery from our cable car.....

Here is Amanda not enjoying herself quite so much... some fool farted in the cable car!

Parque Arvi was great fun, We went for a guided walk through the forest, unfortunately our guide couldn't speak English but luckily for us there was a family on the tour also who were Colombian expats visiting from Florida who gave us a great running commentary! We saw the most beautiful butterfly, it was huge could change colour from red to pink to blue depending on what light was shining on it. Again we saw a stupendous amount of orchids, they grow everywhere here, out of every nook and cranny whether it be on the side of a concrete wall or off a tree branch, unfortunately we did not see many of the orchids in flower, even in the botanic garden there was a surprisingly small amount of orchids actually flowering.

Over the last couple of days we went on 3 local tours, to find out more about life in Medellin. They were all marvelous for different reasons, and again the passion of the Colombian guides giving the tours shone through in bunches, it is really nice taking tours with locals who truly and deeply care for their country and areas of interest. The first tour we went on was called the exotic fruit tour, Amanda and I were joined by another couple and our guide who took us to the local market so we could sample some of the many wonderful fruits on offer. Colombia is the most diverse country in the world and this is certainly visible through the sheer number of fruits available at the market. We tried 16 different fruits, including 4 vaieties of Pomegranate and 3 varieties of Guava as well as my personal favourite the Cherimoya (apple custard fruit), it really does taste like custard! yummy!

Enjoying a lemon and Lulo fruit smoothie after the tour! yum!

Toilet seat anyone!? 

We also went on a tour of the downtown area with a local university student, the tour lasted about 4 hours and the guide enthralled me from start to finish, he was such a passionate and informative guide I wouldn't even know where to start in describing it to you, the city of Medellin has had such a incredibly and often bloody history there is simply to much for me to go over here. One of my favourite stories he told centred around this rather non descript junction in the centre of town, there is now market stalls parked all the way down what you would believe to be a pedestrian street, however this is not supposed to be the case... The market stalls used to be located on the pavements and it seems that one day a daring market trader decided he would edge his cart out into the street, this was closely followed by all the other market traders and before the police even knew about it they had taken over the entire street and still have not relinquished it! If you look carefully at this picture you will see the still functioning traffic lights at the junction!

We had a sobering last day when we went on a Pablo Escobar tour, He certainly has left a bloody mark on Medellin, I don't really know how to include the story in this post so I think I shall make a seperate post soon and tell you all about him! Me and Amanda had a wonderful time in Medellin, it is a beautiful and safe city with perfect weather and so much to see and do. I shall leave you with some pictures of Botero square home to countless Fernando Botero sculptures and a picture of what Colombia is truly famous for.... the best coffee in the world!

oh and for all of my Cleveland friends look who I found in a shop window! Chief Wahoo! Have a very merry Christmas if I do not see or speak to you before x x x x

Happy Christmas!!!

Colombia - The only danger is wanting to stay part 1

If you ever visited me when i was a student you would have noticed the many posters on my walls from places in the world i would love to visit at somepoint in my life. One of these places was Colombia, the poster was long and thin with a picture of a pristine white sandy beach and turquoise ocean down the centre with all manner of flora and fauna around the outside showing of the incredibly bio diversity of this wonderful country. The words "Colombia; The only risk is wanting to stay" were scrwaled across the middle.

Well this year Amanda and myself decided it was time for a adventure so we hopped on a plane and ended up in Colombia.

The in flight entertainment had our flight from Miami to Medellin going way off course, as it was programmed to have us heading to Los Angeles, it was funny that the further into the flight we got, the longer the time to arrival also became!

I will admit that the holiday did not have the very best of starts, after all the stress that is involved in going away, packing, waking up early and getting through American security the last thing Amanda wanted was for me to kindly deposit the entire contents of her water bottle over her seat to be endured for the rest of the long (3hour) flight down there! Oh well we thought, soon we will arrive and shall have a lovely well deserved long sleep! Well, Medellin had other ideas. The airport is a good hour away from the city (situated on the only bit of flat land large enough for an airport) and the journey to town consists of a almost non stop descent on very winding roads with mind blowing views down the valley to the city below (Not so great if you have a tendency to get travel sick!). Medellin comes alive at night time, it seems there is no nook and cranny that can avoid the Salsa on a Saturday night! So after a wonderful nights sleep consisting of booming music and the typical sounds of revellers all around us we woke up the next morning in an extremely bad mood and wondering what we had let ourselves in for. Not to worry though, there was another flight to catch, this time to the Carribean coast and the city of Cartagena!

A Fernando Botero sculpture, I'll tell you more about this artist in part 2!

Colombia is a very colourful place!

Me enjoying a nice cup of coffee, do you like my mustouche?

On our way back up the hill to Medellins airport, I startled by the suprising amount of cyclists that seem to be out on the road, this despite the fact they were climbing up what appeared to be Mt Blanc and despite the fact that it was chilly and bucketing down with rain in the city of the eternal spring - the city with the perfect climate. Colombians absolutely love cycling, in fact I think I saw more cyclists on this 45 minute taxi ride than I have seen in America in the last year!! I found it to be a very refreshing change :) Here is a picture of one of the cyclists thoroughly enjoying himself in the rain!

Nice day for a bicycle ride

Cartagena is the Colombian jewel in the crown, a key trading post on the Carribean it was first founded by the Spanish back in 1533 and by strolling on top of the old city walls or through the myriad of streets inside the old quarter you feel like you have been transported back to this time. The old city is almost perfectly preserved, while the city has sprawled out way beyond it's origional walls inside the old city you feel like you are in a time warp, with very few vehicles and just some street sellers jostling for your attention. Unless of course it is a cruise ship day, when thousands of bewildered tourists find themselves thrust away from the safety of the cruise ship into the hectic and terrifying country of Colombia. You would not believe the amount of street sellers that come out of the woodwork on these days, maybe they have their own boats stocked with millions of straw hats that simply follow the cruise ships around the carribean?!

Enjoying a stroll on the walls of Cartagena de Indias

Amanda enjoying the view

The first few nights we decided to splurge out ($50 a night) and spent our time in the paradise that is the Casa India Catalina, a old Spanish colonial building turned hotel complete with hammocks , a swimming pool and a magnificent breakfast where you were joined by a couple od cute little parakeets who wouldnt stop chirping away... And of course all the freshfruit you could possibly dream of! Our hotel was slap bang in the of the hustle and bustle of the old quarter. This was the perfect base for us to go exploring and go exploring we did! We visited everything the old quarter had to offer including the museum of gold, the seat of the Spanish inquisition, the KGB russian pub and a multitude of little coffee shops nestled in sleepy squares dotted throughout the old town. We must have walked over a thousand miles in Cartagena including a daily stroll at sunset atop the old city walls. It was very romantic!

This is a picture i took of our hotel, it was so hot and humid my camera lense fogged up!

Please note the straw hat peeking into the picture!

Cute little birds that wouldnt stop singing to us at breakfast time

A pot full of gold at the gold museum.

We had been told that in Cartagena you have to experience Playa Blanca, one of Colombias best and apparently most accessible beach. We woke up super early in order to get to the port for 9am in order to catch the boat over to the beach. Sounds siple right? Things started to go pear shaped almost immediately as it turns out for some inexplicable reason (except possibly the confusion of tourists) there are approximately one million boats that all depart for the same beach at the same time and it is up to you to make sure you get on the right one, it is absolute pandomium!! Pandamoniom continued as the order of the day on board the boat as I had to put my hand behind Amandas head to stop her getting whipped by a rope every time the sailors yanked it back in an attempt to get one of the engines started. But when they finally did get the engines started... WOW! this little boat was powered by two gigantic V6 engines and to say it went like a rocket would be an understatement, it positively flew across the sea, exceeding the speed of sound and leaving us with startling views into the ocean on our left and right as the boat was moving at such a rate and the front so high up above the waves that we werte actually below the waterline! This roller coaster of a ride continues for about an hour before arriving at the beach oops sorry I mean aquarium!  It seems before going to the beach the boat first stops at the aquarium where you can part with 50'000 of your precious pesos to walk around for an hour. Needless to say this didn't appeal as we just wanted to go to the dam beach, we were happy when the engines again roared into life and we presumed at last we were on our way to playa blanca. Alas this was not the case, it was decided that while we were waiting fo rthe people in the aquarium we could instead go snorkling in the crystal clear waters of the Carribean, obviously this comes with the added cost of renting the snorkel, which in our rudimentary Spanish we believed to be $6000 pesos but yup you guessed it, the guy in fact was asking for 60,000 pesos! about 20 dollars to go snorking for half an hour! Needless to say we rejected this proposal also and as a punishment it seemed we were dumped in this marshy, mosquito infected bay with many other disgruntled tourists (Natives as well as foreigners) to wait for everyone to finish up in the stupid aquarium before finally arriving at the beach at about 1pm! 

That gave us just 3 hours to enjoy what was a beautiful beach before the boat came back to pick us up at 4pm! I loved the fact we were seated right next to the guy selling cold beers, where I could just raise my hand a bottle of beer would magically appear in front of me for the magically price of about 30 cents! Amanda enjoyed the fact that if she raised her hand a bowl of fresh fruit would also magically appear in front of her, although she didn't enjoy the fact that the said bowl of fresh fruit was accompanied by Colombias entire population of flies!

The street vendors are not only good for beer on the beach, any time you get a little peckish you simply need to find to turn round 360 degrees and you are sure to see a arepa cart! Arepas are basically corn bread pattys which have been fried and have a little pocket cut into them in which anything can be added, different regions have their own take on the arepa but the ones in Cartagena were my favourite because they used to stuff them full of cheese! The most I paid for an arepa was one dollar so they are really great to keep your motor running.  We really enjoyed eating out every night, especially the fact that we could walk into any restuarant with complete confidence that we'd still have some money in our pockets even after a couple of beers and bottles of wine! Actually I think we grossly overestimated the value of the peso, on the last night we really splurged on a 3 course bonanza at Crepe and waffles which is a national chain that Amanda  said reminded her of the cheesecake factory in the USA and reminded me of Nandos. You get a crepe for yyour dinner which you can basicaly fill up with anything that you like and then afterwards you can finish it off with a tasty nutella waffle, yum! We each had a dinney dessert and much wine and beer but as we had no pesos left I used my card, they only charges me $21.40 which was substantially less than we expected and means we could have spent even more money while we were away!! 

Your typical arepa street vendor.

There are mango trees everywhere in Colombia, and as a result another one of the street vendors specialties is fresh mango juice, they have a cart with a great big box full of mangoes which I suspect they just pick up as they roam the city as the mangoes are literally falling off the trees by the thousand. They juice it for you in front of your very eyes and will charge you anything from 2 dollars on a cruise ship day in cartagena to 20 cents in a residential suburb of Medellin, you can barter for your goods from the street vedors in Colombia, but not when it comes to food as this is seen as disrespectful.

Amanda getting pooped on in plaza Bolivar

Relaxing in Plaza Bolivar

Here is a picture of me and Amanda relaxing in plaza Bolivar. Throughout Latin America you will find many squares, statues and whatnot commemorating Simon Bolivar. I suppose you could say he led a rather hectic life, and certainly not many people coud match his CV. During his 47 years he played a influencial role in liberating and forming the independent countries of Venezuala, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama and Peru and then assumed the presidency of each of these nations AND did I mention he also had the country of Bolivia named after him and assumed the presidency there as well! Incredible!I am sure he was extremely popular in Spain at the time!

Many Colombias LOVE the Miss Colombia competition, it is a very prestigious event and previous winners have gone on to lead exciting lives, ranging form the classic movie star and pop star to landing high level government positions, One winner even the defence minister!

A nice view of Cartagena from Castillo San Felipe, you often see canons upright in the ground like this, the Spanish used to use them as winches in order to shift heavy items.

We enjoyed a brilliant week in Cartagena, however it was extremely hot and we were both very excited at the end of the week when it came time to head back to Medellin and spend a week cooling off in the mountains! I'll tell you all about it in part 2!